The present invention is directed to program-controlled communication equipment and, more particularly, the present invention relates to a broadband ISDN communication equipment. Program-controlled equipment in the related art is described, for example, in application number WO 93/20 509. In this known device, an object-oriented program module is provided for handling dialed connections. According to the principle of object-oriented programming, classes, which are also referred to as structure elements below, are defined in this program module. Objects of the classes are instantiated for execution of specific switching-oriented functions. These objects present a data encapsulation to the outside and are comprised of a unit of data and program procedures that are also referred to as methods.
General information regarding object-oriented programming and the rules thereof may be derived, for example, from B. Meyer, "Object Oriented Software Construction", Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.Y. [sic], 1988 or from B. Fraunheim et al., "Objektorientierte Programmierung" (C++ Programming Course, Part I-Part IV, Elektronik 1990, Nos. 22-25).
In the program-controlled equipment disclosed by application number WO 93/20 509, the objects belonging to the switching-oriented program module communicate with one another via method calls. The objects thereby logically form a call chain. The call sequence is strictly sequential. An asynchronously delivered, external event (for example, a call signal) must run through the entire method call chain until the terminating object is reached. System reactions to this external event run through the entire method call chain in reverse sequence.
With respect to object orientation, this represents a solution that is not optimum because some objects execute methods without influencing the data contained in them merely so that the call chain is not interrupted. It is thus an object of the present invention to disclose a method for reducing the number of method calls for an external signal in a program-controlled equipment. In the program-controlled equipment of the present invention, the complexity of the individual structure elements within the switching-oriented process is reduced and the throughput of the program-controlled equipment is enhanced. This is particularly critical for a broadband ISDN communication equipment.
The present invention shall now be set forth in greater detail by way of example below with reference to drawings.